Two killed at Prince Harry's Afghan base

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A BRITISH MP has insisted Prince Harry must stay and fight in Afghanistan, despite being a priority Taliban target.

British Conservative Party MP Colonel Bob Stewart, who commanded troops in Bosnia, told the Press Agency today that the Prince - who celebrated his 28th birthday on Saturday - should not be pulled out of Afghanistan because of Taliban threats.

"To hell with them," he said. "Harry wants to go there and our soldiers want him there. He should stay."

But Colonel Stewart was prepared to concede the prince should be pulled out if "circumstances change".

"These things aren't set in concrete," he said. "Capturing, killing or hurting Prince Harry would be a huge propaganda coup for the Taliban."

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban, told The Associated Press: "We attacked that base because Prince Harry was also on it and so they can know our anger."

He added: "Thousands more suicide attackers are ready to give up their lives for the sake of the Prophet."

Prince HarrySource:AP

A spokesman for Britain' Ministry of Defence said the threat to all service personnel is continually assessed and all measures were being taken to mitigate it.

"As we stated last week, the deployment of Captain Wales has been long planned and the threat to him and others around him thoroughly assessed," he said.

"We stated that any risk posed by his deployment, based on the capability, opportunity and intent of the insurgency, is continually reviewed."

The attack on Camp Bastion in southern Helmand province, one of the toughest battlegrounds of the war, started at 10.15pm (3.45am AEST) on Friday and the base was cleared on Saturday morning, said US Army Major Adam Wojack.

Prince Harry was never in danger, officials confirmed.

General Sayed Malook, the head of the Afghan army in the south, said a suicide bomber blew himself up, blasting a hole in the perimeter wall and allowing insurgents to storm inside with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

BastionSource:AFP

"As soon as they entered the base, fighting started. Afghan forces were not involved, they only helped to extinguish the fire," said General Malook.

A fuel reservoir and an aircraft hangar were set alight during the attack and it took until dawn to extinguish the blaze, he said.

Major Wojack said it was not immediately clear how the attackers had penetrated the airfield, which is used by both American and British forces, but confirmed that aircraft had been damaged.

Eighteen insurgents were killed - including the suicide bomber - and another was captured and wounded, said Major Wojack. They were dressed in camouflage, he said, but declined to say whether it was Afghan army uniform.

A defence official in Washington said two US Marines were killed, and NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force said some personnel were wounded, but gave no details, in line with policy.

Britain says it doesn't plan to cut short Prince Harry's deployment.

Britain's defense ministry said the prince's deployment was carefully planned and the threat to all British troops "is continually assessed and all measures taken to mitigate it."

The brazen attack is likely to renew serious questions about how insurgents managed to penetrate such a massive logistics hub in the desert, which in June Britain said was home to 28,000 soldiers.

In March, an Afghan man died after trying to ram a truck into US Marines waiting on the tarmac to greet US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta as he flew into Camp Bastion.

There are growing concerns about Afghan personnel opening fire on their NATO colleagues, killing 45 Western soldiers so far this year, the majority of them American.

A Taliban spokesman claimed the attack was waged to avenge a low-budget American YouTube film, "Innocence of Muslims", which has incited a furious wave of deadly anti-American violence in Yemen, Libya and Sudan, and protests in many other countries.

"A number of mujahideen fighters have carried out suicide attacks on Camp Bastion in Helmand in revenge for the insulting movie by the Americans," spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone.

UnrestSource:AFP

The Taliban this week vowed to kill Prince Harry, who is deployed at the base as an Apache helicopter pilot and who celebrates his 28th birthday on Saturday.

ISAF said it was assessing the extent of the damage to the camp, but the prince, who will spend four months at the base, was not affected.

"He was not in any danger," said Master Sergeant Bob Barko of ISAF.

In 2008 Harry was hastily withdrawn from Afghanistan when a news blackout surrounding his deployment on the ground directing aircraft in attacks on Taliban positions, was broken.

This time, however, the government released images of him in Afghanistan from the start, saying that any risk "has been, and will continue to be, assessed".

The Taliban have stepped up attacks as NATO hands responsibility to Afghan forces and accelerates a phased withdrawal that will see most Western troops leave the country by the end of 2014.

Helmand was the focus of a 30,000-strong troop surge announced by the United States in 2009 designed to reverse the Taliban insurgency.

More than 327 Western troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to the iCasualties website, 250 of them American.